OK, I've added the following blurb to the text under "Extent". I agree that it doesn't hurt to echo the concern in this article, even though it is a subset of the Places article.

As with all Area Places, a Parking-Lot Area Place's geometry nodes should not be allowed to "snap" to adjacent road segments or junctions while being adjusted. Doing so can make the Area Place, as well as the adjacent segments or junctions, more difficult to modify.

The MP scripts now appear to be run so seldom and unpredictably that I think it's impossible to reverse-engineer this question on anything shorter than a geological timeframe.

The question comes up as to how much we should worry about what does and doesn't trigger MPs at all.

In recent months I've encountered some compliant public parking lots located underneath freeway viaducts. These are a pain to map in separate chunks to avoid overlapping the freeway, and not accurate to do so either. Is it time to remove the prohibition against mapping Parking-Lot Area Places over roads bearing through traffic?

That's interesting. I noticed it briefly during a recent trip but hadn't yet pursued understanding the functionality.

This opens another can of worms. We had been cautiously suggesting Parking-Lot Point Places as OK for named but dedicated parking. For example, different sections of a giant parking lot for a theme park or college or sports venue.

If each and every nearby parking-lot place now displays with a "P" marker, then driving around the hypothetical theme-park lot with different sections marked, one would see an abundance of "P" markers. Meanwhile, visitors to neighboring destinations may see those "P" markers too, even though they are dedicated to patrons only. Those visitors would not be able to determine from Waze that the "P" markers do not mark parking they can legally use; at least not without some guesswork.

So, does this mean that even Parking-Lot Point Places must now be held to the full "general purpose for the general public" standard? If so, what do we do for all the editors who enjoy marking different sections of private parking lots?

And does it mean we should stop using the Parking-Lot Area Place altogether and only use Point Places? Probably not, but should the constraints on the Parking-Lot Area Place be more stringent now that the Point Place has display functionality?

Not sure I follow...is the idea that all named parking, whether dedicated or not, whether for the general public or only for limited groups like customers or permit holders, should now get Area Places that call out the limitations associated with the parking in their displayed name?

E.g. even restricted private parking could now get an Area Place as long as it's qualified in the name? For example "Mercy Hospital patient parking only" "Matrix casino parking only" "Millennium hotel guest parking only"?

Stylistic questions aside, there's a practical problem which is that (it appears) all "P" markers look exactly alike whether it's general-public / general-purpose parking or dedicated/private parking -- and in fact the "P" markers can display in such a way that they cover the Area Place label, as is evident in nzahn1's example image. It seems like it might be terrifically hard for a driver who has limited attention to examine the screen closely to determine which "P" is suitable and which "P" is not.

The way this is now implemented, with a simple large generic "P" that can even cover the name, makes me think average drivers will be better served by our limiting use of the Parking Lot Place to general-purpose general-public parking. But maybe named dedicated/private parking could get another category of Point or Area Place?

Sorry if I misunderstood the suggestion...I'm not getting the concept here.

We need to determine where we want the new "P" marker to pop up. If Waze has programmed it to pop up on any nearby Parking Lot category, then ipso facto we must only apply that category to things we want to get a "P" marker.

Personally, as a driver, I would find it confusing to see "P" showing me both parking I could use as well as parking I couldn't use because I'm not attending a given event or theme park or whatever. If that happened often I would soon begin to disregard "P" and it would become a nuisance rather than a feature.

So unless the functionality changes I'd lean against using the Parking Lot category for private/dedicated parking like stadium or permit parking. Not because I don't think they deserve a Place! But simply to prevent the "P" marker from showing up on the app.

If Waze made a WME checkbox for the Parking Lot category to identify whether it should be shown with the new "P" marker, that would be a great solution.

Alternately, we could use another category. Again I'm not saying things like Stadium Lot E shouldn't be mapped at all! I can definitely see the utility. I'm just saying it seems problematic for them to get a "P" marker. So, using another category -- perhaps one associated with the venue, e.g. "Stadium / Arena" would work.

I don't consider that an ideal solution, but Waze may be forcing our hand here.

The new "P" markers appear to be shown within a surprising range. Surprised me anyway. The leftmost "P" marker in the image below is 1.25 km from my position (at the destination)!

I am not sure if we care whether this new "P" marker helps drivers or misleads them. As I've learned over in the Walking Trails thread, there is an apparently widespread (and certainly strongly-held) belief that our job as editors is to add content for our own enjoyment and for all potential uses of Waze. This perspective seems to say that it is not our brief to care about our content's impact on drivers hoping to reach their destinations and beat traffic. My suggestion in that thread to constrain certain content in order to safeguard drivers' experience was met with blistering resistance, including references to book burning and illegitimate authority.

So I don't know anymore if we care, but assuming we do: the Parking-Lot Place will be shown to drivers reaching their destinations over an area of minimum 4.9 sq km or 1.9 sq mi. That is massive! It suggests to me that, if we don't want drivers to be confused, we mustn't use the Parking Lot type to mark anything that isn't general-purpose parking for the general public.

DwarfLord wrote:It suggests to me that, if we don't want drivers to be confused, we mustn't use the Parking Lot type to mark anything that isn't general-purpose parking for the general public.

This is already accepted as best practice, and had been adopted in the guidelines of many countries.

Flattery will get you everywhere (and I certainly prefer it to the brass knuckles I got in the Walking Trail thread).

The reason this comes up is because many editors like to mark named dedicated parking such as university parking ("Snafu University Lot A"), stadium parking ("Fubar Stadium Green Lot"), tourist-attraction parking ("Beach Boardwalk West Lot"), etc.

In fact, worldwide, the Parking-Lot Place is (apparently) commonly used for private, dedicated parking. So much so that, a few months ago, examples indicating otherwise were summarily removed from the Parking-Lot wiki article without any discussion here.

I would be delighted to modify the Parking-Lot Place wiki article to reinforce the "general public, general purpose" principles for Point Places as well as for Area Places; the article currently waffles on Point Places. But, I don't want to put effort into such changes if another editor will just delete them, or if, heaven forbid, I get the brass knuckles again.

Timbones wrote:I'd also like to suggest that the Ps to not appear if the destination is known to have parking, i.e. place has 'Parking for customers' ticked or nav point is on parking lot road.

This is a really fantastic suggestion. I wish I had a way to communicate it to Waze.

ialangford wrote:Ok, here's my question about parking lot places showing P flags, one I think DwarfLord has already brought up. Does it work for just areas? Or does it work for points too? What if the point has parking as a secondary place? Before we decide what to do about these flags, we need to know when they show up.

Good question. Another editor reported that Point Places with the Parking Lot category will get a "P" marker but I have not confirmed that. All the "P" markers in my example originated from Area Places.

(EDIT: I just looked at the map of Baltimore for the screenshot editor nzahn1 posted earlier in this thread, and, as that editor indicated, the "P" marker does indeed appear to arise from Parking-Lot Point Places.)

(EDIT 2: One of the "P" markers in my screenshot from Santa Cruz arose from a park that had Parking Lot as a secondary category.)

The only workaround I can think of is to use a different category for the Point Place. Maybe echoing the dedicated purpose for the lot, for example "College / University" for university parking, "Stadium / Arena" for stadium parking, etc. Or just "Other"?

There's nothing about the "Parking Lot" category itself that affects routing to the Place (as far as I know).

Doing this will be confusing for editors though. When is a Parking Lot not a Parking Lot?

Makes sense to me, but dang if I have any idea how to "push" Waze. Sometimes I feel like we are just using alien technology that someone discovered in a cave near Roswell NM. At least, that's about how much influence we seem to have with the developers.